Friday, 21 February 2014

Blind commentators

By this I don't mean commentators who can't see! (Unless Sherclop comes out with a "Sees Bad reviews Pony" video, which would be hilarious.) I mean commentators who record themselves responding to an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that they haven't seen before and post their reactions for all to see on YouTube. (Or Dailymotion, if they've got sufficiently fed up with attracting YT strikes.) Sometimes they also do blind reactions for episosde from other gens or fan-produced content.

Probably the best known blind commentator is Soundspeed. He's built up a following of almost 15,000 subscribers thanks to his comic timing, open reactions and sheer enthusiasm for the show. He's also become personally popular, as could be seen recently when he encountered serious problems in his personal life and received great support from viewers. On the minus side, he's not the quickest uploader and can occasionally make some pretty off-colour jokes.

Then there's The Awkward Reviewer, with a little under 6,000 subscribers. His major selling point is the detailed review he provides after each episode – including an on-screen summary of the ep's pros and cons, as well as a mark out of 10. Like many commentators, he started out doing MLP commentaries almost as a joke and stayed when he realised how much he liked the show. TAR's downfall is that he makes far too many unfunny sex jokes, and that this aspect of his commentaries has become so prevalent as to become very tedious.

I personally prefer CobaltSky, with close to 7,000 subscribers, who dials right back on the dodgy humour and concentrates on providing an actual commentary. This is almost always both entertaining and perceptive, while also pulling off the trick of knowing when to speak and when to shut up. Cobalt also gets a point from me for, on the one occasion I made a comment saying I'd found an off-colour joke disappointing, not only re-editing his video but sending me a personal PM. He didn't have to do this, but the fact that he did speaks volumes.

A relatively new name to me, though he's actually been doing this for a while, is TPrower. He's one of those who's decamped to Dailymotion, so his apparent total of 15 "followers" isn't remotely representative. A mild irritation is that his commentaries are split into two parts, I guess because DM makes him do so, but it's worth putting up with. TPrower has a fantastic voice, he very rarely swears, he doesn't make pathetically crude jokes and he's always ready to be happy for a pony who achieves her dream. Much as I still like Cobalt's videos, I think I have a new favourite commentator!